Generic content on the internet adds zero value. And there’s plenty of it. Without skilled writers or exceptional prompts for ChatGPT, the words and sentences that come out will lack interest, insights or a reason to keep reading. Your unique voice holds the key to your writing making waves. Your experience, the challenges you’ve overcome and the lessons you’ve learned, will mark the difference between show-stopping and mediocre.
Dr Jeremy Nguyen is an AI educator, combining professional storytelling experience with deep expertise in AI and machine learning. A senior researcher and lecturer at Swinburne University, he co-leads a multi-disciplinary team researching AI and human creativity. He is also a screenwriter on an upcoming Disney+ series, holds a PhD in computable general equilibrium modeling and publications in machine learning, and helps sports teams, businesses and digital entrepreneurs implement machine learning and AI to solve business problems. Dr Nguyen runs international workshops on AI for writing and storytelling, and his AI prompts have been quoted by the president of OpenAI himself.
Contrary to popular belief about large language models and their ability to produce, Nguyen believes that AI writing shouldn’t be lifeless. “Instead, AI can make our writing more authentic and personal,” he said. Here’s how to prompt ChatGPT to help you create content with your unique voice.
Create unique and personable content using ChatGPT
Distill your voice
First thing’s first. Get ChatGPT to understand your unique voice. Once it has run analyses on exactly how you write, it’s better equipped to write in your style. “This prompt mimics a natural language processing approach to voice, distilling your style from a writing sample,” explained Nguyen. Once you have this voice description, you can use it to ask ChatGPT to rewrite any writing into your voice. Here’s the prompt he recommends.
“You are an expert ghostwriter, world-class at capturing your client’s authorial voice. You are also an expert in natural language processing. Below is an [email/blog post/document] written by your client. Please use natural language processing to create a paragraph that describes key characteristics of your client’s voice, so that an LLM could write in a similar voice using only the paragraph as input: [Paste a sample of your writing]”
Write in your voice
You don’t just want ChatGPT to write like you. You want it to write better than you. You want every sentence to be representative of the best, most sharp version of you as a creator. If that’s what you’re looking for, Nguyen recommends furthering the chat with this next prompt, to “add some inspiration, while keeping the enhancement level low enough that it still sounds like your voice.” Paste this in and edit the square brackets accordingly.
“You are still an expert ghostwriter. You already have a natural language processing analysis describing the client’s authorial voice. The client has indicated that they also like [person whose voice you admire, eg. Robin Sharma, Oprah Winfrey]’s voice and character, so please mix in 15% of [person you admire]’s writing style]. Can you please write a [blog, article, newsletter] to [desired outcome of the content].”
Distill your unique points of view
“Content creators typically want the writing that ChatGPT produces to sound more like them,” explained Nguyen, which in his experience refers to their unique or contrarian points of view. “If voice is style, point of view is part of the substance.” Incorporated well, they can capture a piece of writing and make it indistinguishable from the original source. Use this prompt to give ChatGPT your opinion on topics you know about, to benefit the writing it can do on your behalf.
“You are an expert in the [your industry] industry. Please create a numbered list of at least 10 conventional wisdoms commonly communicated to [your target audience, eg. ‘aspiring screenwriters’] looking to [audience’s goals or frustrations, e.g. ‘break into the industry’]. Then ask which numbers I think are unhelpful for my audience’s goals. Interview me, one question at a time, pausing for my answers, to find and distill my unique perspectives. The final output will be a bullet point list of my contrarian perspectives, the results I achieved from holding them, and how they differ from conventional industry wisdom. Start by showing me 10 conventional wisdoms.”
Find your relevant personal experiences
AI does not have your personal experiences and it never will. So it needs to know about your life in order to channel these into copy. But how do you know what to say? Nguyen has something you will have fun trying out.
“With the next prompt, you will create a fictional discussion with a hypothetical dream team of people,” explained Nguyen. “The idea is to include a diverse mix of people from many different media; screenwriting, novels, orators; and respond to the scenes that they suggest.” This is a fun and engaging way of stimulating ideas for your content. Pay close attention to what comes out, and edit accordingly. Continue the conversation until ChatGPT knows your stories. Here’s the first prompt for this task:
“Your job is to interactively simulate the conversation of a writers’ room with me, the user. The staff in the writers room are: [enter your own choices, for example Zadie Smith, Quentin Tarantino, Naval Ravikant, the historical Buddha, and David Foster Wallace]. The job of the staff is to brainstorm ideas of scenes and real experiences of mine that relate to the topic I am writing on. You each propose scene ideas, and then ask if I have experiences that fit those general ideas. OUTPUT FORMAT {{[Writer]: [Short comment or idea. Typically only 1-3 sentences. Includes a question to the user about whether they have a personal illustration. Also includes an example in quotes of what a sentence might look like].}}”
It might sound crazy, but it works. These characters will come up with ideas of scenes they’d like to see, related to your field, and ask if you have any experience of something similar. ChatGPT will use this information to understand your unique experience so it can write in your style.
Write with your combined voice, perspective, and experiences
“Your voice, perspectives and experiences are the three components you need to nail,” explained Nguyen, and with the prompts above you have them in place. Now is where ChatGPT combines the information to attempt to write in your style. Next, you’re going to outline the information it has, and ask for ideas of the document that will mark its first trial. After that, test the limits of what it can create, and be continuously surprised when it sounds just like you. Here’s the final prompt to set it on its mission:
“You are an expert, world class ghostwriter. You now have 3 sets of information from your latest client: (1) an NLP analysis describing the client’s authorial voice, (2) a list of their perspectives that run counter to the prevailing industry wisdom, (3) a list of personal experiences and anecdotes that relate to [topic of the writing]. Please use (2) and (3) to propose an outline of a [blog, newsletter, set of tweets] to achieve [outline the objective]. After we revise and agree upon the outline, I will then ask you to write the first draft using (1) to emulate the client’s voice.”
Prompt ChatGPT to write in your style, tone and voice
ChatGPT will not write like you without being prompted in the right way. Nguyen has the formula that will crack the code. Train ChatGPT to understand your unique voice, tell it your unique perspectives, and give examples from your unique experience. Combine these elements to set the AI model up for success with any piece of content.
Supercharge your output in the right way, with words that you’re proud to publish and content that will actually make an impact.
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